Arizona Immigration Law: The California Boycotts Start Rolling In

Los Angeles-based Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion over the weekend called for a boycott of Arizona goods, services and tourism in response to the state's new law requiring immigrants to carry documentation and allowing police broad power to detain those they suspect of being in the country illegally.

Critics contend that the law is patently anti-Latino and that people who simply look Mexican, including native citizens, can and will be detained, although Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer said ethnic profiling would not be tolerated. "We call for a boycott of all goods and services from Arizona and pledge to avoid tourism in the state as well," La Opinion's editorial reads. "Let's send a signal of our disgust with an arrogant state government that asserts powers it does not have in order to persecute a minority population."

The city of San Francisco on Monday beat Los Angeles, one of the nation's most-Latino cities (and certainly one that is more so than S.F.), to the punch in calling on its citizens to boycott Arizona as well. "San Francisco has always taken a leadership role in issues of moral importance," City Attorney Dennis Herrera told Associated Press.

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Is the city of L.A. next? (Come on L.A. City Council -- this isn't like balancing the budget. It's a soft ball).

Dennis Romero is an L.A. Weekly staff writer. He formerly worked at the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Los Angeles Times, where he participated in Pulitzer Prize-winning coverage of the L.A. riots. His work has appeared in Rolling Stone online, the Guardian and, as a young stringer, the New York Times.